woensdag 23 juni 2010

It began with an innocent trailer on YouTube -- a plug for a club called "Roots." The scene showed well-fed women wearing traditional Muslim head coverings but otherwise garbed in chic clothing enjoying themselves at the club's "fine dining restaurant, banquet hall and terrace cafe." What was startling was the club's location: in the heart of Gaza City.

Gaza, the territory which, to judge from international news media reports, is the most impoverished place on the planet earth. Gaza, which is supposedly suffering from such terrible shortages that "activists" from around the world have no choice but to ram blockades to bring in desperately needed goods. Gaza, which has managed to capture the sympathies of the United Nations, Europe - and even the White House.

The YouTube image of plump, fashionably garbed Gaza women enjoying a night out on May 10, made many people wonder if perhaps all those news media accounts of Gaza poverty were not quite accurate.